Jovana Grozdanović lives in the city of Niš, Serbia, and discovered polymer clay quite by accident, when she wanted to make a couple of figurines to decorate her bookshelves. From that moment on she fell in love with modeling, which has been her passion for almost two years now.
“It fascinated me how, once the clay is baked, it becomes a permanent sculpture, jewelry, or even an object useful in our everyday lives,” she says.
Jovana used to work in a medical biochemistry laboratory and at some point during the pandemic she reached her psychophysical limits. “This discovery I made about polymer clay was a true revelation and therapy for me to such an extent that now my only goal in the future is for polymer clay modeling to become my primary field of work and expertise,” she discloses.
The main inspiration for Jovana’s artwork comes from books, movies and video games. “I love science and epic fiction and that is why I like to make sculptures of fantastic creatures,” she mentions. In addition to these, she also likes to make sculptures of animals and enjoys making brooches with motifs from the real and fantastic world.
While creating her sculptures, the artist uses the usual tools for working with polymer clay, but she also likes combining different media (faux fur, various fabrics, artificial leather etc.). She pays special attention to painting her works, for which she uses acrylic paints, various pigments and pastels.
“My sculptures usually require making a reinforcement armature first, which I make of aluminum wire with the addition of aluminum foil,” she describes. “I consider myself a beginner, who has not yet been fully realized, because I am attracted to various techniques that I like to try as soon as I learn about them.
I owe a big thank you to the artist Marko Lovrenski, who convinced me at the beginning of my clay journey that this should be my occupation and that polymer clay is the right medium for me to use to express my artistic self.”
Jewelry making and mug decoration are very popular in Serbia, which gives Jovana hope that their community of polymer clay artists will soon expand. This community is actually growing larger every day and she already had the opportunity to meet many artists from Serbia and the surrounding countries.
Jovana’s plans for the future are to master more techniques of polymer clay art because she believes she needs to make more progress in order to achieve her goals. She strongly believes it is the artist's job to always strive for greater goals.
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